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Maine guv right on BPA science; wrong on joke

Maine Gov. Paul Lepage was correct about the controversial chemical bisphenol A (BPA) when he recently stated that,

““Quite frankly, the science that I’m looking at says there is no [problem]. There hasn’t been any science that identifies that there is a problem.”

Unfortunately, he then went on to joke that,

“The only thing that I’ve heard is if you take a plastic bottle and put it in the microwave and you heat it up, it gives off a chemical similar to estrogen. So the worst case is some women may have little beards.”

The incident gave the anti-BPA jihad-ers the opportunity to rant to the media, decrying Lepgae’s comments as,

“… shocking ignorance for the science and a callous disregard for children’s health…”

But a recent scientific evaluation by a World Health Organization expert panel confirmed that BPA is efficiently converted into estrogen-inactive metabolites and rapidly eliminated from the body after exposure, which indicates that BPA is unlikely to cause health effects.

In any event, Gov. LePage, it’s a lack of estrogen that would be associated with bearded ladies.